Wise Words with Bruce Wise

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Predicting finite entropy due to quantum effects,
blackbody radiation, near the͡ event horizon’s etch;
denying actuality o’ th’ wave-func-tíon collapse
accepting many-worlds-interpretation’s random haps;
attempting to unite QM with relativity
in one grand intertheoretical cosmology:
he did all this before he died o’ th’ mot’r neuron disease,
amyotrophic lateral schlerosis, by degrees,
communicating through speech-generating hand-held switch,
until the end when all he had was a cheek muscle’s twitch.

I. E. Sbace Weruld is a poet of the Universe.

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On Secretaries of State: Falling from Graceby Brice U. Lawseed

Across the World in India, while touring for her book,
the former Secretary Clinton, trying to look cool,
upon the steps of Jahaz Mahal palace in Mandu,
slipped on the stony steps, not once, but twice, and saved twice too.
She gave her litany of reasons why she did not win,
and, too, a diatribe against the country once again.

Warned by the chief of staff to halt his trip to Africa,
Rex Tillerson received a tweet that he was to be sacked.
The Texan oil executive, unliked by Dems and Press,
was tossed by Prez just after he was back in the US.
“I’ll now return to private life…a private citizen…
proud of the opportunity to serve my country.” End.

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Whorled Wide Web, said,
I paraphrase, firms need to be blocked—superintended.
We can’t allow Facebook and Twitter, Google to become,
Fatbook and Twisted, Goolag-istic, Europygium.
What was once a rich platform of weblogs and free-form sites
has now become Tryanni-Soros-Techs that trample rights.
Together Google and Facebook account for more than half
of advertising’s digitally promo-pyroscaphe.
This year’s the year that more than half of Earth is now on-line;
a shame it is, if it will be a lock-step unimind.

Esca Webuilder is a poet of the Internet, who has noticed that the Thought Police have already been unleashed. Beware the Tides of March!

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The Unheard Prophetby R. Lee Ubicwedas

Sometimes I feel as if I’m talking to the wind,
because no one responds to what I have to say.
Nay, nearly all the time, my words fall flat in din;
indeed they scat, like oak leaves—skittering—away.
It is a miracle I go on chattering,
when there’s no one to shout out back a hailing hey;
and true, at times I take a brutal battering;
the hail blasts against me; the blizzard drowns me out;
and all that’s left are but some bits, a smattering,
of which it is impossible to e’er surmount.
I cry out to the roaring storm. I cannot win.
It is my fate. Cassandra wait. I’m coming now.

R. Lee Ubicwedas is a poet of the Cosmos.

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On Deadly Acts and Double Agents by SubCIA Weedler

Prime Minister Theresa May said it was likely that
the Russians were blameworthy for the poisoning attack
on Sergei Skripal and his daughter, sitting on a bench,
in Salisbury, by Novichok nerve agent’s choking wrench.
The two are in a critical, but stable, safer state,
despite the wretched circumstances borne of Putin’s hate.
May said the act was reckless, a despicable, low blow;
the Russian Foreign Ministry called it a circus show.
US spokesperson Sanders said it was an outrage yet;
it would not be that easy for the English to forget.

Her whetstone was her poetry, on which she sharpened wit,
but it could not sustain her, when it came right down to it;
at forty-two she left the zoo, in her Manhattan home,
depressed, perhaps, that once again, she would be left to moan.
She played about the quiet urban sets of soft despair,
of Auden, Larkin, Soren Kierkegaard and Baudelaire,
and left the New Republic in the New Millennium,
before she had a chance to fuselize titanium,
on coated diamond plate, culled from rutile and ilmenite,
to make her—Rachel Wetzsteon—hard enough to take the light.

Dic Asburee Wel is a poet of New York.

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Gaius Cornelius Gallusby Aedile Cwerbus

A Roman and equestrian, born 70 BC,
of all the elegiac poets, rough and rugged, chief.
He wrote four books of elegies, upon his Licoris,
who was perhaps the infamous mime-actress Cytheris.
By drawing on Euphorion he introduced the verse
made famous by Tibullus, Ovid, and Propertius.

Of Varius and Vergil, he had been a young school mate;
the latter praising him, for he had rescued his estate.
Most all of Gallus’ poetry has vanished into time,
but Vergil left an eclogue honouring him with his lines.
For his support, Octavian named him the praefector
of Egypt, till he irritated the young emperor.

In 29 BC he halted a revolt in Thebes;
but when he made a monument in Philae for his deeds,
he brought Octavian’s wrath down upon his mighty head.
In 26 BC, by suicide, the man was dead.
Quintilian said Gallus’ elegiac verses were
not so lascivious, nor elegant, but strong and stern.

Mount Aetnaby Aedile Cwerbus

Mount Aetna, the volcano in the east of Sicily,
between Messina and Catania, but west of these,
ten thousand feet above the plates beneath its furnaces,
its clamourous heat-currents, ever roil’d in burning cess,
by serpent-monster Typhon, trapped by Zeus for his attempt
to overthrow the cosmic order, vile and unkempt,
the son of Cronus, loser of the cataclysmic brawl
that left the kingly deity, the ruler over All.

Mount Aetna, ever in a constant, moving, crushing froth,
since half a million years ago below the blue sea broth.
In time, the huge eruptions grew, like vast, smashed thunder bolts,
and regularly built up Vulcan’s forges under it.
Great pyroclastic flows left ignimbrite deposits there,
and ash that rose up high and far into the open air.
Perhaps eight thousand years ago Mount Aetna blew its top,
like Mount Saint Helens thirty-seven years ago collops’d.

The fertile soils from the spewing mountain help support
the vines of Bacchus, grapes for wine, beneath the firey tor,
Athena’s laden olive branches aided with firm poles,
the orange orchards on the lower wide, volcanic slopes,
and other foods, like lemons, almonds, wheat and artichokes,
all dear to Ceres, fresh tomatoes and pistachios,
and on the southeast slopes, one thousand feet up tow’rd the skies,
the town of honey, Zafferana Etnea’s plat lies.

However, though some say Mount Aetna is home to a god,
this is not true; it’s just because those souls are overawed.
They truly think these fields grow the crops of Demeter;
they have not read Lucretius and his fierce hexametres;
nor have they read Catullus’ passions, keen and sceptical,
Lucilius, Cornelius, or Vergil’s epic quell.
No Cyclopes used Vulcan’s forges in Mount Aetna’s core,
nor did Jove trap a Titan in maniacal, mad war.

Though there’s a harbour, large, untroubled by the passing winds,
Mount Etna’s rumbling avalanches cause a massive din.
It spews dark clouds into the sky with smoking turbulence;
it throws up flaming balls and glowing ashes, hurling hence;
it licks the stars, it vomits rocks, its torn entrails spread;
it gathers molten lava, boiling from its lowest depths.
It’s said that Enceladus’ body’s buried in that mass;
but there’s no roar, “I burn, Mount Aetna, cast in bronze and brass.”

Mount Aetna has apparent marvels seen by watchful eye;
vast openings plunge in abysses, awe and terrify;
the mountain rearranges limbs projected out too far;
enormous the confusion; elsewhere paths, the thick crags bar;
the channels weave a checquered weft; they work and hem it round;
subdued by fires, some rocks drop into the flaming drowned;
phenomena so mighty, such is crashing Aetna’s seat,
enticing fools into unhallowed holed activity.

By Scylla and Charybdis, near the rough Messina Straight,
Odysseus found himself between a rock and a hard place,
beyond bright Italy, it stands in brighter Sicily,
it towers o’er the area waves scintillatingly.
The vegetarian Empedocles, who wrote in verse,
reportedly jumped in its loveless striving hateless curse,
still thinking that the elements, earth, water, air and fire,
could save him from stupidity and knowledge of desire.

But look on this colossal work of nature you who dare,
beyond the human rabble and the rubble of despair,
and you will find, when Dog-Star’s blazing in the flame-fanned heat,
Mount Aetna rising high, so massive, powerful, complete,
there sending white-hot flares encased in ruby-red curved shells,
up into heaven’s pale blue from churning, broiling hells,
and you might wonder, maybe for a while, what you have seen,
a mighty snowy-topped volcano, in its majesty.

Aedile Cwerbus is a poet of ancient Roma and Amor. Vergil dedicated his tenth eclogue to Gallus, which may be reflective of his poetry. “Mount Aetna” draws from Vergil’s “Aeneid” and Vergiliana.

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The Sonnetby Uberde Ascweli

The sonnet brings to light its artist’s personality;
exposing to the World its creator’s realty.
We learn much from the author’s habits in so small a turf;
not furtively we ride the tide and furrows of its surf.
Some writers play about the rhymes and handle them with care;
some writers climb the rising waves and fly up in the air;
some writers seek exhilaration in its rise and fall;
some writers strive to make a move that’s not been done at all.
The sonnet is a moment in the Sun, and then it flees
into the foamy waters of eternity’s deep seas.

Uberde Ascweli is a poet of the Italian Renaissance. Fond of Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio, he is also a close confidant of poet Buceli da Werse.

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Concierto de Aranjuez—II. Adagioby El Cid E. W. Rubesa

Inspired by Palacio Real de Aranjuez,
from 1939, Joaquín Rodrigo’s masterpiece,
the short adagio, so heartfelt and so beautiful,
embraces the profound depths of España—o, it pulls.
It is so simple, penetrating, and so serious,
one is drawn in to its mysterious severity.
And though Rodrigo, blind, could not play the guitar, o, he,
in the B minor key, unlocked its slow, sad melody.
Amidst loud jazz, big bands, rock, rap and movie musicals,
his quiet oeuvre was one of the last era’s miracles.

El Cid E. W. Rubesa is a poet of España, and its traditions in poetry, in music and in art.

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The Changing Forestby Bard Eucewelisfor Sam Gilliland

The changing forest heeds the season’s ever moving call
of autumn, winter, spring and summer, back again to fall.
We leave, but still recall the diamond waterfall we seek,
that fell across the well-placed log upon the flowing creek.
The melancholy of the scene comes from the broken heart
that wishes it could start again, but has to be a…part.
It’s true, the bard’s fate, much to his surprise, is hard as stone.
He cannot stay with those he knew, he has to be alone.
We all move on. But still it is not easy to forget
the trickle of refracted light, the ferns, the trees, the friends.

Bard Eucewelis is a poet of the Celts, from Galicia and Brittany to Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.

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The Azaleas Are in Bloomby Wu “Sacred Bee” Li

It’s not quite Spring, but the deep pink azaleas are in bloom
beneath the lightly-clouded sky of pale azure blue.
O, like the thinking home bush, scraggly flowers bouncing, flounce,
beside the dark and pale red bricks; I’ve come to my house.
We’ve left behind the rain—two thousand miles was our roam—
It’s brighter, warmer, xiang shu, I don’t think of my old home.
Du Fu has vanished with the eons, but I still recall
a cup of tea, the stories shared, your face, so beautiful.
My love for you, my love, though some day we too have to go,
will never leave me while I’m thinking, o, I’m thinking home.

Wu “Sacred Bee” Li is a poet fond of ancient Chinese literature, from Han to Sung (206 BC – 1279 AD), including the Tang poet Du Fu (712-770) mentioned here. His hao, or art name, can be understood more completely by reading Hilda M. Ransome’s “The Scared Bee” published in 1937, or Eva Crane’s “Beekeeping and Honey Hunting” of 1999, where she quotes Quo Fu (200s-300s) in “Bee” as “building golden houses.”

Liu Haixiao, from Shuangyang, Changchun, Jilin’s capital,
of over seven million people in its metropol,
who go about their busy lives of work and play and rest,
are probably completely unaware of him unblessed,
who’s spending his life in a jail for faith in Falun Gong:
2002, arrested long ago. It has been long.
That same year, when his father died, renouncing his belief,
police harassed his mother—Liu was given no relief.
Guards tortured him upon a chair for hours long on end,
and he was forced to memorize detention center regs.
It hurt to bend; his legs were sore; there were no eggs with spice:
potatoes rotting for the soup and sand mixed in the rice.
With no hot water, ice-cold winters; life was very hard;
and the batons—electrified—cut even as they charred.
His home is Jilin Prison since October 23,
2003, where he was transferred—expeditiously.
He shared his cell with seventy, but none of them could talk;
feet blisters, due to scabies, made it difficult to walk.
He was still forced to do hard labour; but could not get help.
Unless he gave up Falun Gong, he would remain in hell.
He itched, he was in pain, he slept just minutes every night;
his weight dropped under eighty, but he tightly held to life.
Brainwashing, by the likes of Zhao Jing and Wang Yuanchun,
could not force him to disavow belief in Falun Gong.
Batons came out, then off he went to solitary time,
for fifty days and more he sat amidst the wretched grime.
Though members of his family have pleaded he renounce
his faith, he won’t, this brave man of conviction, free from doubts.

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Lu Wei Hai (Reed Lake)by Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei

Reed Lake is 7,000 feet above sea level’s height;
its marshy length is 14 miles; it is quite a sight.
The reeds grow thickly in Jade Ribbon streaming through birch trees;
on insects, birds, like wild ducks and widgeons, pause to feed.
In spring and summer, waters shine a deep translucent green,
o, verdurous and emerald, then reeds are flourishing.
In fall and winter, golden reeds meet Sichuan-fresh eyes,
and during flowering the stems sway in a soft surmise.
The downy catkins joggle tenderly in breezy air;
and for a moment, it’s as if one doesn’t have a care.

Duterte has words for the UN and the ICC.
Don’t speak to them, he told his military and police.
If they call you, my God, you fools, you’ve got a CIC.
I am the one who’s taking full reponsibility.
Zeid said Duterte needs a psychiatrical eval;
Duterte said the UN should be fed to crocodiles.
Can’t I protect my country from the criminals of drugs,
and drain the swamp of apparatuses and rat-like thugs?
What do you care, you heroine and opium salesmen?
What care I for your hypocritical opprobrium?